Johnston named new boys basketball coach at Athens

Jeff Johnston, whose six-year run as the boys head basketball coach at Greenview High School ended after the 2010-11 season, has returned to the area ranks as the new boys head coach at Athens.

Jeff Johnston, whose six-year run as the boys head basketball coach at Greenview High School ended after the 2010-11 season, has returned to the area ranks as the new boys head coach at Athens.

Johnston, 41, replaces Kevin Gordon, who resigned after four seasons with the Warriors. They finished 12-14 overall and 1-8 in the Sangamo Conference this year.

Johnston was hired to fill the coaching vacancy at Athens. He is in private business and will not teach at the school. He lives in Greenview, which is just a few miles north of Athens. With an enrollment of 69 students, Greenview is the smallest public high school in the area. Athens is at 332.

“Having coach at Greenview, we battled the numbers issue,” Johnston said. “Athens is not big by any means, but we should have the number of kids where we can do some things we couldn’t do before.

“If we can get the programs in place, from the youth level on up, there’s no reason we can’t be successful. One of our main goals is to build a consistent program that can be competitive year in and year out.”

Johnston’s Greenview teams, which played in a tough Class 1A Tomahawk Conference, went a combined 59-72 including 13-14 in 2008.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Johnston said of the Athens job. “It’s convenient for me, and it’s an opportunity to build a program and be successful. It won’t happen overnight, but I’m not planning on going anywhere else.”

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